Court: Neo-Nazis can march in Moscow

MOSCOW (JTA) — The Moscow city government will allow two neo-Nazi groups to march.

Leaders of the far-right Slavic Union and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration decided to go forward with their march despite the beating by masked teens and hospitalization of the movement’s leader, Alexander Belov on Saturday, the same day his deputy died in a car accident.

The march is slated to take place on Friday.

The march will be scaled back and moved further from the center of the city. The leaders of the movement decided to cancel a mock funeral for the Russian constitution, saying it would be inappropriate on the same day as the real funeral of one of the movement’s leaders, Jewish.ru reported

The Russian city government limited the number of marchers and refused to allow the parade down the city’s central artery to the Kremlin.

The city made things more difficult for members of the liberal opposition group, Other Russia, to protest, providing them with convoluted routes and protest spaces that make a counter-march nearly impossible, according to a report from the Union of Council for Soviet Jews.